


The City And Its Sorrows

by cuttooth



Category: I Am In Eskew, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A glut of urban fear, Crossover, M/M, Mild spoilers MAG S4, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth
Summary: “What makes you think your friend is in Eskew?” David asks. He feels he can risk the scrutiny of the city that far.“I read that this is a place people end up when they get lost,” says the man.“This is a place people end up,” David agrees.*The Archivist comes to Eskew.





	The City And Its Sorrows

**Author's Note:**

> For the unfamiliar, "I Am In Eskew" is a podcast set in a surreal city of horrifying occurrences, with an unreliable narrator who rarely refers to anyone by name. Very strong on imagery and atmosphere, and crawling with horrors that could come right out of a Magnus-verse statement.
> 
> I imagine this in an alternative MAG season 4 where the Lonely has sent Martin entirely missing. It might be kinder than what's happening in canon right now. Includes some mild spoilers for the first few episodes of Eskew.
> 
> Title by Exitmusic.

 

There is someone new in the Queen & Crown tonight. David can tell he’s new by the look in his eyes, cautious but not afraid, and by the fact that he is asking questions. Anyone who is not new to Eskew knows better than that. Questions attract attention.

_I’m here looking for someone_ , the man is saying to people, _Have you seen him?_

The expat patrons of the Queen & Crown ignore him aggressively, hunched over their drinks. Answers also attract attention. They know better than that.

David should know better as well, but he rarely does. When the man finally sits at the bar, frustrated by the fierce inattention of the drinking crowd, David sits beside him and orders a pint. The man looks at him, and David tips his glass in a salute: to being new and ignored. 

“I’m here looking for someone,” the man repeats wearily. His voice is subdued, his accent clipped and academic. 

“I heard,” says David. He takes a drink. The beer is salty today. Like beef gravy, he thinks, or Worcestershire sauce. Definitely not like blood. It’s interesting. 

“A friend of mine.”

“What makes you think your friend is in Eskew?” David asks. He feels he can risk the scrutiny of the city that far. 

“I read that this is a place people end up when they get lost,” says the man. 

“This is a place people end up,” David agrees.

The man picks up a plastic rectangle from the bar and shows it to him, an employee ID with a name and a grainy photograph. This is Eskew, so half the photograph is lost in shadowed stains, but David can just make out a timid smile, curly hair.

“Can’t have been much of a friend,” he notes, “If this is the only photo you have.”

“He was - he _is_ ,” the man says, his mouth downturned. “But I...wasn’t.”

David knows how that goes. He doesn’t think he’s ever been much of a friend to anyone. 

“You should be careful in the city,” he says. “It can be - ” He stops himself, considering how to describe the myriad and looming dangers of Eskew without actually acknowledging them. _Don’t draw attention,_ says the voice in the back of his head that has helped him to survive this place.

“It can be confusing,” he concludes. “If you don’t know your way around. Easy to get lost, until you’ve spent some time here.”

“I don’t intend to spend much time here,” the man says. David laughs at that. 

“I hope you find your friend.”

*

The next day David goes to work with a hangover, and doesn’t think about the stranger. The Editor shouts at him about some sports event he was supposed to cover, except David isn’t the sports editor and didn’t even know the city had a team. He goes to lunch at his usual café, and orders his usual vegetarian panini, resisting (as usual) the urge to let the woman behind the counter know that the singular is actually called a _panino_. He picks the teeth and hair out of it as usual, before taking his first bite. It is delicious. 

That night he goes to the Queen & Crown and sees the same man sitting at the bar. He has a tired, defeated look about him. The look of someone who has failed at their life’s only purpose. David feels a mild curiosity about this man, who’s apparently come to Eskew on purpose. Something David wasn’t aware was possible. Against his own better judgment, David goes to sit beside him. 

“Back again?” he says, aiming for jovial but landing somewhere he thinks is closer to accusatory. The man gives a faint, sad smile. It makes him look younger. 

“I, uh, didn’t intend to come here again,” he says. “I seem to have just...ended up here.”

David nods. That’s the sort of thing that happens, particularly when you first get to Eskew. Before you understand the city’s rules, how to bend to its demands while skirting its more impulsive whims. 

“I’m David,” he says, extending a hand. The man shakes it stiffly. There are a couple of faint, circular scars on the back of his hand. David can see similar ones on his face, traces them with his eyes down across the man's neck to where it disappears into the collar of his coat. They look like they hurt a lot to get. 

“Jonathan Sims,” the man says. “I’m the Ar - the head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, in London.”

That name, _the Magnus Institute_ , sounds familiar, like something David maybe overheard once on the Tube, or halfway read in a newspaper while waiting for a late night kebab. Or maybe like something he dreamed.

“I’m from London, originally,” he says, as if having that in common between them was something of note. As if there weren’t eight million other people with the same distinction. 

“How long have you been here?” the Archivist asks. David frowns, considering.

“A while,” he says finally. Then: “Did you find your friend?”

“No,” the Archivist says. “No, I - I haven’t found him yet. It's been...difficult, to find my way around."

David wants to say _I told you so_ , but he can't be certain he did. Instead, he says:

“How did he get lost?”

“I, ah, I’m not entirely sure,” says the Archivist, almost a sigh. “I think it may have been my fault.”

David tips his glass towards the Archivist, a salute to being at fault, and then takes a drink. Tonight the beer tastes like beer. 

*

The third night, it’s almost become like a routine. The Queen & Crown is busier than usual, but David spots the Archivist sitting at the bar immediately. He weaves his way through the huddled, paranoid crowd and takes the only remaining seat right next to him. Orders a beer, tips his glass to the man beside him, a salute to being the only two sane people in the city.

The beer tastes like nothing. David empties the pint in two long drafts, signals for another.

“Why do you stay here?” the Archivist asks. David smiles. That’s easy, at least.

“This is a place people end up,” he says. 

“There must be someone who's worried about you, back in London?”

“Like you’re worried about your friend?” David shrugs. Then: “Tell me about the Magnus Institute.” 

The Archivist tells him, about people afraid, in despair, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. People who come to the Institute to tell their story, to beg for help, to plead for someone - anyone - to believe them. About fear that kills, and devours, and turns people into monsters. David wishes he could be disbelieving, but this sounds far too familiar. In the corner of his eye, the walls warp faintly, _something_ pushing in, slow and inevitable. He is filled with a sudden impulse to show the city to the Archivist, to tell him _look, I understand, I live this too_. He leans close, insulating their conversation against the hooting crowd of drunken foreigners. 

“Would you like to see Eskew?” he asks. The Archivist looks at him, for an instant torn between hesitance and curiosity, and then nods. David drains the end of his drink, licks the flavorless remnants from his lips.

“Let’s go, then."

He leads the Archivist across Endless Square, into the tangled streets of Oldtown. It’s dangerous to walk here after the sun has set, unless you know where you’re going. You could end up anywhere or nowhere at all. Shadows beckon from beneath archways and overpasses, whispering enticements that David might pass off as just in his head, except for the Archivist’s startled face turning towards them. The streets are malicious, but David is wise to their tricks. 

They continue walking, and David points out landmarks as they go. They traverse the Fish Market, its iron grates shuttered, the bistros and bars around its outskirts feverish with celebration. They mount Hound’s Hill and pass the magnificent glass edifice of the Commemoration Gallery, its doors forever temporarily shut. They drop back down to skirt the foot of Cemetery Hill, below the great rickety tower still clawing at the sky, a monument to hubris and conformity. 

They pass through the strangenesses of the city, its murmuring webs, its incomprehensible turnings, its transgressive geometries of twisting steel and concrete and despair. David shows it all to the Archivist, watches his eyes widen and his face pale, and feels strangely proud. Because yes, this is Eskew, horrifying and intransigent to explanation, and he survives here. He _thrives_ here. He is a symbiont organism, wired into the city’s blood and nerves, stepping in time to the pulse of its vast, violent existence. Fearful, yes, but defiantly alive. 

They walk through the Strangers’ Quarter, and it’s only as they are crossing the old railroad bridge that David becomes aware they are heading for his apartment. That’s the sort of thing that happens, but David thought he was smarter than this, more aware of the city’s eccentricities. 

“I’m just in here,” he finds himself saying. “If you’d like to come in, for a cup of tea or something?”

There is a swift but unmistakable dart of grief across the Archivist’s face, which David notes with interest, before it rearranges itself quickly into calm dispassion.

“That would be nice,” he says. 

Inside David’s apartment, he is acutely aware of the mess, the stains, the things that are watching through the windows. It’s not ideal for guests. The Archivist glances at the orange bottle of risperidone on the living room table, and David feels the urge to explain about his prescription, his two psychiatrists, the one that talks to him, and the one that stands in the corner, hiding its face and gibbering. He thinks that’s a bit much, though, for someone he doesn’t actually know. 

He makes tea, and they sit on his couch, sipping it in silence. The tea tastes like ash, like tears, and David can’t explain it. He bought it from the supermarket just a couple of days ago. He isn’t sure why they’re here, why he brought this strange and sorrowful man to his home, except that there is something appealing in his anguish. Something of loss and longing that David finds familiar, that is comforting in a distressing sort of way. And, his eyes are a most piercing gray. 

The Archivist is leaning towards him now, those gray eyes intent. 

“This city,” he says, “There’s something very wrong with it.” 

David shakes his head minutely, warningly. You don’t say those things. You don’t _think_ them, if you know what’s good for you.

“Just try to ignore it,” he says. “It’s the safest way.”

“Tell me about Eskew,” says the Archivist, and David hears the faint click and hiss of an old fashioned tape recorder. He can’t, of course, because talking about the city only draws its attention to you. He can’t, but he finds his mouth opening all the same.

He tells the Archivist about the city. About the pit and the tower, about the people who became worms and vanished. About the endless, bewildering maze of the Commemoration Gallery, the charcoal and shadow figure that haunts it. How the Architect’s hand had grazed his for just a moment as they stood on the threshold, as if desperate for some small piece of human contact. About the time the city itself wooed him, meat bouquets and tidbits of flesh, strange tatters of endearment. About the blank, white masks that look back at him from crowds, from mirrors, from his bedroom walls. How he longs to see what lies behind them, and fears it. About how the city is always watching. Never, ever leaving him alone.

David talks for, he thinks, a long time. When he finally stops, his mouth shuts hard, teeth clacking together. His heart is racing, and he can feel cold sweat prickling his forehead. The Archivist is looking at him with an expression that might be sympathy. The scars stand out silvery against his skin in the lamplight.

“Statement ends,” says the Archivist, and the tape clicks again. David is breathing hard. He’s said too much. He can feel the city’s eyes on him, unspeakably _aware_ of him.

“I’m sorry,” the Archivist says, and he sounds like he means it. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”

David kisses him. 

The Archivist’s lips are dry, and for a moment his mouth opens under David’s, wet and tasting of ash and tears. His hand comes up to the back of David’s neck, to the soft skin there, and David shudders. David’s own hands grasp the Archivist’s thin shoulders, like he might shake some sort of truth out of him, some sort of hope. The Archivist makes a soft sound against his mouth, then pulls away, turns his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and David feels resentment swell up inside him at the implied burden of those words. He pushes it away, because he knows it isn’t intended to hurt him. Because it is just a statement of fact.

“Your friend,” he says. “You care a lot about him.”

The Archivist looks down at the ground, at his hands, at anywhere but David. He is hunched miserably over himself, and David feels suddenly sorry for him in return.

“I - yes,” says the Archivist. “But I should have been better at it. I should have realized sooner how - how important he was. He is.” 

David nods. He understands. He only ever realizes how important things are once he’s lost them. That, he thinks, is how you know what’s important: when it’s gone, you miss it. 

“He’s not in this city,” the Archivist says. “Now that I’ve seen it, I can tell. This isn’t the kind of lost he is. Thank you, for showing me.”

“What are you going to do, then?” David asks. The Archivist stands up.

“I need to move on,” he says. “Keep looking.” 

“You can’t leave the city,” David tells him. “Nobody ever can.”

The Archivist gives a grim smile. 

“I’m going to find Martin,” he says. “I’d like to see them stop me.”

*

The next night, David goes to the Queen & Crown, and sits at the bar alone. He orders a pint, and tips his glass in a salute to nobody: to defying the city. The beer tastes like ashes and tears, like tea.


End file.
